Is Egypt safe? The advice, region by region

The honest answer to whether Egypt is safe is that it depends entirely on which part of Egypt you mean, and that the question has a published answer which is more specific than any general reassurance. Governments maintain travel advice by region, and for Egypt those regions are drawn quite tightly: North Sinai is a place you do not go, the remote border areas are places you check before you go, and Cairo, Alexandria, the Nile valley, the oases and the Red Sea coast are destinations where the advice is about ordinary precautions rather than prohibition.

That is not a marketing line. Millions of people visit Egypt every year, and the things that go wrong are overwhelmingly the things that go wrong anywhere warm, busy and unfamiliar: traffic, heat, dehydration, a stomach upset and a persistent salesman. Those are worth planning for, and they are the reason this guide spends as much space on the ordinary as on the exceptional.

Where the line is drawn

North Sinai, the peninsula north of the coastal resort strip, is the area the advice is firmest about, because an insurgency has been active there since the security vacuum that followed 2011. Attacks on the security forces have been frequent enough that the region is treated as a conflict zone, and a 2017 attack on a mosque near Bir al-Abed killed hundreds of people. The resorts of South Sinai, the Sinai interior around Saint Catherine, and the main roads between them are a different matter, and are treated as destinations.

The western desert and the areas near the border with Libya and Sudan are usually included in stronger advice, because they are enormous, empty and effectively unpoliced. The Nile valley, the Delta, the Mediterranean coast and the Red Sea coast are not.

What has happened, and what changed as a result

Egypt has had a violent history with tourists, and pretending otherwise does not help anyone. The attack at Deir el-Bahari in Luxor in 1997 killed 58 tourists and four Egyptians and changed security at every site in the country. Three bombings in Sinai between 2004 and 2006 hit Taba, Sharm El Sheikh and Dahab, killing hundreds of people, most of them Egyptians working in tourism. In 2015 an airliner leaving Sharm El Sheikh was brought down over Sinai with the loss of 224 lives, and the United Kingdom suspended direct flights to the resort until 2019.

What has changed since is the location of the violence rather than the level of vigilance. The attacks on tourists have stopped; the insurgency has concentrated in North Sinai; and the security apparatus at hotels, museums, airports and sites has become a permanent and visible feature of the country.

What actually goes wrong

Ask anyone who has spent time in Egypt what went wrong on their trip and the answer will be one of three things. Traffic, first, because Egyptian roads are busy, the driving is confident and the statistics are not good: use the train for long distances, book a driver rather than renting a car yourself, and avoid long night drives on desert roads.

Heat, second, because the country is hot for much of the year and the dehydration creeps up on you: drink more than you think you need, finish the monuments before eleven, and keep the middle of the day for the shade.

Then the stomach, third, which is usually a day of discomfort rather than an illness: eat hot food in busy places, drink bottled or filtered water, and carry rehydration sachets.

Scams, hassling and how to walk away

This is the most common negative experience visitors report, especially at the pyramids, the bazaars and the big sites, and it is worth understanding the shape of it. Someone tells you a site is closed today and offers to take you somewhere else. Someone attaches themselves as a guide and asks for payment at the end. Someone hands you an object, ties a scarf on your head, or puts a camel under you and then names a price. Others are commercial rather than dishonest: the perfume and papyrus shops that come with a tour, the taxi that will not use its meter.

The defences are unglamorous and effective: agree the price before anything begins, buy tickets at the official window, decline help you did not ask for, and walk away. Egyptian hospitality is real, and so is Egyptian hustling; the difference is whether you asked for it. If it becomes a problem rather than an annoyance, the tourist police at any major site are there to deal with exactly this.

For women, and for solo travellers

Solo travel in Egypt is common and the tourist infrastructure is used to it, and the reports women give are mostly of persistent verbal attention rather than physical threat. The practical measures are well known and work: dress modestly away from the resorts, use the women-only carriages at the front of the Cairo metro, sit in the back of a taxi or use a ride app, have the hotel arrange transport at night, and meet unwanted attention with a clear no, in whatever language, followed by continuing to walk. Same-sex relationships are not socially accepted and are prosecuted through other laws, so read the current advice and be discreet.

Egypt is a country where you are far more likely to be overcharged than to be in danger, and the useful preparation is the same as anywhere: read the advice for the regions on your itinerary, take the roads and the heat seriously, keep your documents and your cash in two places, and enjoy the fact that a visible security presence at every hotel door also means a lot of people whose job is watching out for the visitors.